A million reasons to end hunger
Pol's plan to get more food for New Yorkers who struggle like he did
Sunday, May 20th 2007, 4:00 AM
Councilman Eric Gioia saw for himself how far $28 in food stamps goes.
Queens City Councilman Eric Gioia lived for one week on $28 in groceries - the average food stamp allotment for an individual. When his poverty diet ended Thursday, Gioia told the Daily News about his experience:
The past seven days of my life have been incredibly difficult. I didn't have enough to eat, I felt tired, had headaches and for the first time in my life felt true pangs of hunger in my belly. All this, and I gained 2 pounds.
But as tough as this week has been for me, the sad fact is that it was nothing compared with what over 1.1 million New Yorkers face every day. Far too many New Yorkers make impossible choices among health care for their children, paying their rent or putting food on the table on a daily basis.
This situation is unacceptable, especially as there is much more that we can do. Government can't promise that everyone will be rich, but it should guarantee that no child goes hungry.
Unlike so many issues in government, this one does not require a complex solution. Rather, better implementation and the expansion of an already proven program can end child hunger and inject hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid to our city.
There are three simple steps we can take.
First, we need to raise awareness so that all New York families making under $26,000 a year know that they might qualify for aid. Many civic, faith-based and labor organizations are reaching out into their communities to spread the word, and this partnership must continue.
Second, our city must continue to ease the barriers to access by cutting red tape and making it easier for working families to apply for food stamps. One easy step already in the works is online applications. We can continue to expand application center hours and provide more applications at places where hungry people already go, such as food pantries and soup kitchens.
Lastly, the federal government must do its part by increasing funding and instituting simple measures like indexing benefits to inflation and raising the minimum allotment. Upping the average benefit by just $5 a week per recipient would ease the burden on working families, allowing them to buy more fruits and vegetables and make other healthier choices for their families.
In the end, increasing access to food stamps is the smart thing to do, and the right thing to do. If we don't act, the consequences are clear. Hungry children do not learn as well. They do not grow as well. Millions of New Yorkers will be relegated to unhealthier lifestyles, subject to diabetes, obesity and a host of other health issues. Their lives will be shorter and less healthy, and the city will pay hundreds of millions of dollars in avoidable long-term health costs.
The sad fact is that there are children in our city who will go to sleep tonight without enough to eat. We must act now to end the scourge of hunger. By fixing this problem, we will change lives, improve our city and stay true to the values that make us who we are as New Yorkers and Americans.
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